® vs. SolidWorks ® July 2020

Introduction:

Who am I? I am a mechanical designer / I.T. manager for a design/mfg. company. I have been there since 2004 and have worked in almost every position from janitor to lead designer. I had the opportunity to work under some great mentors who gave me all the hands-on training I needed to advance to the highest rungs of our company ladder. I try and pass on as much of my experiences to anyone who is willing to take the time to listen. In hopes we can grow off each other and learn from our mistakes.

What we make We make to work alongside automation in automotive plants. This can be anything from a bracket, to a conveyor, to a press loader, to a buffing , etc. Everything we make is one of a kind and each time we remake something we always aim for continuous improvement.

Experience with SolidWorks I started using SolidWorks in 2010 until now. It was a major upgrade for our company. Coming from Autodesk® Mechanical Desktop 2004. After using it for a while, SolidWorks really hasn’t changed all that much in the last 10 years. Every year we need to upgrade to keep on the same version as one of our largest customers, and every year it feels like we are rolling the dice. “ Will this version break my older model ?”, “ I wonder what bugs they gave us this year ”, “Oh nice they improved graphics performance ”. Oh, that’s pretty much it… Apparently that’s all you get for a few thousand dollars...”. It got to the point where I began to look for alternatives. Experience with Onshape I have been using Onshape for almost 4 years. I have dabbled in every corner I can, while trying to test its limits. I love how I can use it at home and not need an expensive license to try it out. From there I have seen it grow every 3 weeks into a very formidable CAD system. When I started using it in 2016 it was an infant that was nowhere near ready for our company to adopt. But I saw its potential even then (mostly because of SAAS),and kept a close eye on it. Onshape’s company culture of listening and communicating openly and directly with the customers was a breath of fresh air. Onshape is not perfect, but it is growing into a beautiful product. I can’t wait to see where they take this over the years.

Grading scale I am grading some categories with a scale of 0 to 5 stars. 0 being terrible or non- existent, 5 being near perfect. All the points will be added up at the end for a final score.

Cloud Computing vs. Desktop

Onshape:  SolidWorks: 

This grade is almost unfair, it isn’t Onshape vs SolidWorks being graded. It is SAAS and Desktop applications in general. But each one lives in their own environment and are stuck there. So they must receive the grade their platform gets.

Cloud computing allows you to run high end software on practically any device. This is because all the heavy lifting is done on large server clusters rather than your device drastically reducing the computing power required by each user. Because Onshape runs in a web browser, that means you can (within reason) run it on any device with a web browser connected to the .

Here I will get into the differences that separate SAAS applications like Onshape from their desktop counterparts like SolidWorks/Inventor/Fusion etc. Cloud computing is far from “new”, it has been around for years and has been proven to be a very powerful way to create applications. The most notable cloud apps are Google’s G- Suite apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc. If you have ever had the opportunity to use both Google Docs and Microsoft Word, you will notice a few obvious differences. Such as: File Management, Sharing, Collaboration Tools, Versioning, etc. These differences are pretty typical traits between Cloud and Desktop apps. If you have used each, then you will already have a good idea of what SAAS and Onshape are about. SolidWorks is a traditional desktop installed application that requires a specific type of computer hardware and to install and run. It only runs on 64bit Windows. Some of the hardware specifications are fairly high in order to calculate all of the geometry in real-time on your device. Cloud apps like Onshape are completely hardware and operating system neutral. If you want to run Onshape on a smart toaster running then I am sure you can. I have heard of those that have managed to run it on a Raspberry Pi with reasonable success. Would I recommend that? Absolutely not! But what does that really mean for us? That means even if you have a 6-year-old computer, or a cheap Chromebook, you can still have the same fully featured CAD package that a power user with an expensive water-cooled rig can with SolidWorks. The only sacrifice you will experience between the two is mostly loading time and how smooth the model rotates when orbiting/zooming/panning. If you want to use a MacBook, or you’re a fan of Linux, then you will be pleased to know Onshape runs just as well. Desktop applications like SolidWorks, are broken down into a bunch of separate executables and packages that all work together to create a single application. This means you will need to have the correct version of all these files on your device, and they must all be loaded for SolidWorks to run correctly or at all. I am mostly referring to .DLL files. If you don’t know what a dll is, it is a pre-compiled bit of functionality that applications can call to execute a simple task. Most of the core functions are broken down into these dlls. When you update a service pack, mostly you are overwriting these dlls. Which means you have a bunch of files on your computer that could become corrupt during installation, or by other means.

Onshape runs on a server and everyone is accessing the same executable. Which means everyone is on the same version and everyone executes the same code, period. You don’t need to browse the forums because your part properties dialogue isn't saving the description you entered after you save the file. This is one reason I am a firm believer of SAAS. With SolidWorks, no two installations are the same. Everyone has their own unique bugs or oddities that are usually related to bad or corrupt installations. With Onshape everyone has the same bug, which means a simple message to support can usually get these bugs fixed in real time, for everyone . As soon as possible, no waiting 3 months for a service pack that fixed one thing, but broke 3 others. I know of a couple occasions where Onshape released a new feature, then a few hours later they removed it. Because it was causing many people to experience slower than normal loading times. This feature was later added again a few months later when there was more testing done. It was as simple as a flip of a switch to turn off a bugged feature for Onshape, most people likely never knew anything happened at all! Customisation

Onshape :  SolidWorks: 

Onshape only has a few preferences that can be customised. These are simple things like: Mouse Scroll Direction, Default units (mm, inch, ft, etc.), Icon placement on toolbar, among others. I rank this low because there is no way to set things like keybinding, or change the colors of the environment, such as a (true) dark theme. Onshape runs in a web browser, so if you are a hacker you can indeed make many modifications by injecting CSS. Or get a dark theme by using an extension like Dark Reader (not perfect). But I don’t count these because they are not built in and are only known to those who care enough to dig in and come up with their own solution. SolidWorks on the other hand ranks high with customisations. You have so many options to set, you could spend hours playing around and t